The Bitter Quill

They say the best way to see further than other men is to stand on the shoulders of giants. This adage may work well in history, the sciences or other arts - but it’s a bit awkward when it comes to writers. In the first place, most writers I know sit when they work - so standing on their shoulders would probably result in an obstructed view of anything but the backs of other giants. In the second place, bending over notebooks and typewriters and computer keyboards may leave writers with rounded shoulders, largely unsuitable for standing.

That being said - as writers we could, and should, read and study the works of the writers of all statures, both of the past as well as the words our contemporaries.

I fully admit that they older I get, the less I know - so I’m constantly on the lookout for writing resources of all sizes to provide me with perspectives, news and other resources I hadn’t previously considered. Here’s a few I’ve scoped out this week:

• The I Should Be Writing Podcast
• Being Able to Write: Lessons from Other Writers, New and Well-Seasoned
  
• Writers Blog Alliance
• Philly Writers
• The Emerging Writer’s Network

Don’t be discouraged by the fact that many of these resources are run by writers still trying to make it in the professional field (much like those of us here at The Bitter Quill). Everyone who writes; be they professional, amateur or hobbyist, good, bad or mediocre, has their own take on the craft, their own methods for wrestling with the hideous, hideous white space, and their own experiences with trying to find a willing (and hopefully, paying) audience for their work. And what works for them may be a valuable tool for you. When I was in high school, I had a passionate crush on a young man who aspired to be a writer, and purchased Natalie Goldberg’s Writing Down the Bones for myself strictly because of his suggestion. The romance never panned out - but the book has served me very well of the years; it is the one book on writing I’ve gone to over and over again, and I have purchased it for more than one aspiring author in my life.

And the young man in question must have known from whence he spoke; since high school he’s had several pieces published, and just recently a book of his short stories.

So, take some time to study the works and ways of your fellow authors. I just recommend in order to do so, you don’t stand on their shoulders. Find a giant near them to stand on, so you can peek over their shoulder to see what they’re working on.

Whether they write as part of a regular 9-to-5 job or as a freelancer, most of the time medical writers and their ilk are working for someone. If it’s not a boss, it’s a client. Either way, working for someone else means that at some point, you will get a Project from Hell.

Projects from Hell don’t usually start out that way. They usually are challenging, but that’s often part of why they are initially so interesting. Eventually, however, the interest fades, largely as a result of spending too much time or effort on the project. Eventually the work becomes less about an intellectual exercise, and more about minutia.

In some cases, these projects become one continuous exercise in revision. In others, the project may disappear for long periods at a time, apparently completed, only to return with more revision. Worst, however, are the ones that periodically self-destruct and then begin again, like phoenixes. Such projects may creep into time allocated for other projects, your leisure time, or your weekends.

In most cases, these projects become nightmares because of a lack of communication or direction. Sometimes the instructions from a boss or client are not transmitted clearly. In other cases, the people who want the project may not have a good idea of who their audience is or what the ultimate purpose is for a written piece.

Much as you may try, these situations aren’t always avoidable. However, it helps to keep in mind that at least you’re getting paid to be bored, irritated, or otherwise inconvenienced and you’re getting paid to write. (Maintaining that perspective is made easier if you’re paid a good salary or by the hour.) That’s one thing your creative writing friends can’t always say.

I found it funny that the evil, mustachioed, get–your–post–in–on–time-or–we’ll– tie–you–to-the-tracks Bitter Quill Powers that Be (else wise known as “Mike”) described me as a “new-media writer” in the introduction to last week’s post. It’s not that the bulk of the writing I do for public consumption these days doesn’t fit that bill — it certainly does — it’s just that in describing the writing I do I’m more apt to use the less formal moniker, “blogger”, because I find the term “new-media” particularly silly (ED: Oi!). There’s nothing “new” about writing. It may not be as old as cave painting or sex or spoken word or dancing, but as methods of communication go, it’s been around a good long while.

What new media blogging has done for writers is create a more egalitarian market in which to flog our wordy-wares. No longer do we need to tie up our lovingly double-spaced bundle of words and count on an editor to recognize our genius. With a push of a button we can take our ground-breaking tales directly to the public at large. And, with additional commenting tools at our (I was going to say “ink-stained” – but that doesn’t really apply in this case…but “keyboard calloused” doesn’t really have the same aesthetic lyricism to it, does it?) fingertips, we can get instant feedback from our audience, so we can hone and tailor or work and give them exactly what they want – and as often as they want it.

Frankly, it feels a bit like cheating to me. When you fantasize about you future writing career (wasting time which, I should like to point out, would have been better spent actually writing), do you dream about your photo on a dustjacket, attending book signings armed with a heavy pen and tweed blazer with leather elbow pads, of discovering your characters either changed someone’s life or featured heavily in their startlingly risqué fanfic (perhaps both), or about spending your time worrying about bloghits and site visitors and troll bashing and your Google Page Rank? Perhaps I’m a short-sighted luddite, unable to grasp that new-media is the wave of the future, or maybe I just give more emotional weight to words I can actually hold in my hand… but I, for one, feel as though I can’t count myself as successful until that byline is printed on paper.
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This is who we, the readers, thought JT LeRoy was: A reclusive writer, biological male (but with gender issues), survivor of an abusive childhood, southern, child hustler, an HIV-positive junkie who wrote autobiographical fiction. This is who JT LeRoy turns out to be: a middle-aged woman from Brooklyn, who wrote fiction that was not at all autobiographical.

This is the new trend, following tight on the heels of the memoir craze: the revelation that the memoir author was not as truthful as we had thought, after all. (See also: James Frey, Augusten Burroughs.) The question is, does it matter? A good story is a good story, after all, regardless of whether or not it’s true. And how true does a story have to be to be a true story? Books like A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius and Julie and Julia come with introductions that basically say, “This book is true, except for the parts I made up.” After all, who can be expected to remember word-for-word a conversation they had three months or five years ago?

I have this habit of making everything vaguely interesting or amusing that happens to me into an anecdote, and then telling these anecdotes over and over again to anyone who will listen. (This is a habit that annoyed the hell out of one of my former roommates, who usually got to hear these stories about five times each.) I am definitely way, way wittier in my anecdotes than I am in the actual situations. I move things around to make them funnier, to make myself cleverer. I exaggerate. I make my own motives purer, and my ex-boyfriends jerkier. I’m no JT Leroy (at no point do I claim to be a rent boy), but sometimes I may be a little bit Augusten Burroughs.

So why do we as a culture feel betrayed when it turns out that James Frey wasn’t really a criminal? If it’s about the art, should it really matter? After all, aren’t we writing aiming for Truth with a capital T, the underlying big truths of life, instead of truth with a little t, the facts and dates of what really happened? And how true does something have to be? Obviously, LeRoy made up an entire life. But what about all the writers who are just stretching the truth a little, to make things sound better? All writers are liars, after all. And the books are still the same, whether they are true or not.

I don’t think it matters in terms of art, whether the things written are true or not. But it matters to us culturally, because we feel emotionally manipulated and suckered by these false memoirs. Some writers get to be celebrities, and writing is a business, after all. James Frey got to be on Oprah. And maybe the thing that bothers us most is that we liked our illusions. We got attached to the fakes.

There’s a certain semi-ridiculous segment of Harry Potter fandom that was really, really ticked off that Hermione ended up with Ron and not with Harry. They thought they knew the story, and then JK Rowling went and changed it on them. Now they say things like, “Hermione wouldn’t really do that.” It’s the same in the faux memoir game. We thought we knew the how the story went, and then life went and changed it on us.

Who, What, When, Where, How, and Why? These are, of course, the basic foundations of traditional journalism, but this isn’t about the news. Anytime you want to tell a story, you need to know the answers to these six questions. More importantly, at least two — better three — of them need to be interesting and engaging.

Consider: Who? A British Lord raised by apes. Where? Darkest Africa. Boom. Instantly engaging. The other questions may have fascinating answers, but we don’t need them. Those first two are all it takes.

Consider: Why? Because they can’t live openly and without fear in a hostile world. And how? Painfully, over the course of many years, culminating in tragedy. Angst. Conflict. Drama! Who and What are strictly secondary, and Where and When don’t really matter at all. The story works just as well with interracial construction workers in Boston as it does with gay cowboys in Wyoming. The four questions that aren’t Why and How are important, but they aren’t central.

Consider: Where and When? The future, inside a massive computer network that computers use to simulate reality to dupe all of humankind. Why? To throw off the machines’ oppressive yoke. In this case, the characters don’t really matter. Neo, Morpheus, Trinity and the Agents were all ciphers and stock characters. You might as well have called them Arthur Pendragon, Obi-Wan, Batgirl and The Ringwraiths. The kung-fu and metaphysical mumbo-jumbo are all just window-dressing that only function as a result of Where and When and Why.

Who and What? Characters. When and Where? Setting. Why and How? Conflict and resolution. Answer at least two of those questions — and make the answers good — and you can build the rest of your story around them.

PS: Tarzan, Brokeback Mountain and The Matrix, respectively. In case you were wondering.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Jessica Haralson isn’t really a smut peddler, exactly. Or maybe she is — it depends on who you ask. In addition to co-founding (and publishing!) her very own Ivy League campus erotica magazine, Jessica is making her mark on the local blog scene with her own advice column at www.phillyist.com. And they say that youth is wasted on the young.

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Yo. I’m a college student idealist; currently living (and mooching) off the University of Pennsylvania’s Ivy League idyll. This means I get to major in English — Creative Writing, specifically — and ponder poetesses like Aphra Behn at the same time as pondering Bui’s vs. Hemo’s for lunch (Hemo’s is cheaper — and the Hemo’s guy is less likely to leer.) I’ve studied under some tres cool professors; Max Apple is one, Dick Polman, the Philadelphia Inquirer journalism-cum-luminary, is another. I’m amused to discover that Maury Povich is funding Penn’s nascent Journalism program. Povich, a Penn alum, seems to have used his education to educate the trash-talkin’ baby mommas of our country’s seamy underbelly.

I also have the free time to do crazy things, like starting controversial campus literary erotica publications, and writing a Love and Sex column for Phillyist.com. Who knew a nineteen-year old could be so darned kinky?

But seriously, forks, I’d like to use this space to branch beyond Quake. No doubt I’ve done some pretty cool shit — like meeting Dr. Drew of Loveline, fame for starters, and grilling Trojan Condoms on why it is that prophylactic salesmen are always so embarrassing and leery about the whole damn affair (ED: Why?). I’ve been profiled in Philadelphia Weekly and 34th Street Magazine, mostly as a pearl-clutching Southerner with an eye for shaking things up (I’m a Texan, not a Southerner, thank you very much, reporters!). I’ve been called a harlot by street corner prophets. I’ve received late night phone calls asking me for vibrator recommendations, first born children, and car insurance . But y’know what? I also wanna be a writer. And it’s easy to get pigeonholed when you produce for the literotica readin’, Nerve-enjoying set. Producing Quake has been fun, no doubt, but one doesn’t get Maureen Dowd-esque fame and the Pulitzer peeps knocking on your door by writing Phillyist columns on the best dildo joint in Old City.

I dallied a lot in short story writing before realizing that I have a Voice for non-fiction. I’ve always been fascinated by magazine journalism, ever since I stole away my mom’s Glamour in the third grade to read in the bathroom “for the perfume samples.” She didn’t believe me, and I didn’t believe myself either. I’d love to write in magazines for fun and profit. And with The Bitter Quill, I plan to chronicle my progress – searching for swanky internships, applying for writing gigs, writing proposals, checking mastheads, and screaming into the dark abyss in my sink faucet.

Let us hope I can avoid the inevitable alcoholism. Truman Capote would be rolling over in his grave.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Anju Kanumalla is whipcrack-smart. This will become rapidly apparent. Anju makes her living in a writing field that I’ll wager most of you don’t, and part of the reason that I invited her to join the Bitter Quill team was her unique and erudite perspective on the whole creative process. Read on for a little bit more on just exactly what the hell it is she does.

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The title of this post is also the most common response I get when I tell people what I do for a living. I actually write in several genres, but right now medical writing is the only one for which I get paid. I also do a fair amount of science writing and some academic (mostly scientific) writing. Every once in a while I’ll also try out a piece of fiction or creative nonfiction.

“Medical writing” is a catch-all term for just about any writing related to health or medicine. This includes newspaper articles, patient materials, technical documents, clinical trial study reports, physician or pharmacist education materials, and internal documents for the pharmaceutical industry.

To become a medical writer, you (obviously) need good writing skills and some medical knowledge, but that doesn’t mean that you have to be a doctor. You should, however, be comfortable around scientific and medical concepts. From what I’ve observed, it’s easier to pick up the medical knowledge than to pick up the writing skills.

A science writer, as you’ve probably guessed, writes about science. However, this is writing for the general public. When the audience includes professionals or the writing is more technically detailed, it’s considered scientific writing. Research articles and grant writing are both forms of scientific writing. It’s worth noting, however, that some forms of medical writing can also be considered either science writing or scientific writing.

Like medical writing, science writing also requires both excellent writing skills and knowledge of content. My experience has been that it’s much harder to pick up scientific knowledge and that it needs to be actively studied.

Education and continuing education are very important with all of these fields, however, so it’s a good idea to always be working on your professional development. (Ideally, you should work on it more than I do.)

One last field worth mentioning is technical writing. Some medical and scientific writing also falls under the umbrella of technical writing. All three of these fields, and science writing as well, have several aspects in common. They usually require specialized skills, comfort with science and technology, and dedication. They also have similar concerns, such as readability and the need to translate concepts and technical language. All four can also be intellectually and (to varying degrees) financially rewarding.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Star Foster is what you might call a new-media writer. In addition to writing some pretty darn cool award-winning interactive fiction, she’s also a very prolific blogger, maintaining her personal weblog, Sarcasmo’s Corner, as well as writing for ShinyShiny and Phillyist. That’s right: She gets paid to blog. How cool is that? She’s also working on a super-secret computer game project, and if we’re lucky we’ll hear more on that anon.

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The brutal task-masters of the Bitter Quill have requested of me a small missive on Why I Write. Better to ask me why I breathe or have hazel eyes or prefer dark chocolate to milk chocolate. These things can be explained – not by me, of course, but by people with a much stronger grasp of biology and science¹. But as to why I write… that is a more difficult question.

I have never not wanted to write, and since I’ve learned how to put ideas to paper, I have never not written. Look to the future autobiography I wrote in the 4th grade, and you’ll see that I had myself pegged as a Newberry Award winner by 30 (drat! Another deadline missed!) In high school I kept a journal whose covers were decorated in my tight, careless script by quotes that inspired me. I often prefer type over talk, and scribbling over superfluous speech.

Writing is hardwired into my make-up. It is how I think best, how I express myself most eloquently, and how I question and explore my world. It is the unwanted, emotionally abusive lover I will make every effort to deny (sometimes even stooping to housework as an avoidance technique when the muse calls) only to end up back in it’s deliciously sinister embrace; exhausted, exhilarated, and anxiously looking for “le seul mot juste” for a monkey on one’s back that is constantly disparaged and yet continually fed for fear it will leave. I write because I want to, because I have to, because I can’t stop myself from constantly wondering “what if,” then from trying to discover the answer. I Write. For me, the “why?” has never really been a consideration.

Now, will I publish? And more importantly, will my work be read? These are the universe’s Greater Mysteries; and ones hopefully The Bitter Quill will help me unravel. And, if not – hey, at least it’s a by-line.

A far more compelling question is, I think, why writers don’t write. Why do we hem and haw and stare at the blank page or blinking cursor and then find something, anything else to do with our time? I’m not talking about the dreaded ‘Writer’s Block’ either – I’m talking about having the ideas and the words at the ready, and yet falling in our duty to pour those out on to the page. We might claim family obligations, or the sudden need for social interaction or that the dishes need doing or the fact that the game is on. Is there any other passion in the world, any itch so easily scratched, any other burning desire so ardently avoided by the desirer? For me, it’s not in the wanting, but in the doing that lies the mystery of this vocation.

¹ Well, except the chocolate bit. I can explain that: It just plain tastes better. You’ll notice “white chocolate” enters nowhere into that equation. That is because it is not chocolate at all, but rather a misnamed aberration. I realize that our language is a wonderful, fluid thing; but there are some words I am simply unwilling to budge on. Chocolate is one of them.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Well, what can I say about Michelle Klein? She is a roiling mass of intelligence, creativity and class, and her son is lucky to have her as a mother. Michelle has a couple of fantasy writing and gaming credits to her name, and she’s got an exciting comic book project in the works. Her strange attraction to Jaime Lannister (from George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series) nonwithstanding, we’re very pleased to have her contributing to The Bitter Quill.

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Once upon a time there was a handsome prince who lived in a castle with his mother, the Lady of the Ink-Stained Hands. She posted her tale upon the Bitter Quill, and so it follows.

I’m getting to the point in my life where I can combine my greatest loves – literature and my child. I have the opportunity to watch him learn not only to read others’ words, but to tell his own stories and to come up with creative ideas. It’s fascinating to experience the fruits of a developing mind. Children have no boundaries. They don’t know all of the ‘rules’ that adults know – they don’t know they can’t fly or won’t be able to fly someday. They don’t know that they all won’t be rock stars or astronauts or firemen or presidents or monster-slaying heroes. Children are the most creative speculative fiction authors you’ll ever find.

So, how does one raise a writer? How does one encourage a child to tell the stories that live in his or her heart and mind? The stories are in there, even if the child can barely verbalize them. My father did it by telling me stories constantly. “When Daddy was a little girl and Mommy was a little boy and we rode on dinosaurs …” he would begin. He generated two results that way – one, I was always making up stories and either writing them down or telling them to the people around me, and two, I never believed that anything he said was true. The moon is not made of Gouda cheese and Prince Charming’s real name is not Irving Schwartz. How do I know? Mom told me.

When I wasn’t verifying things with Mom, however, I was writing. Stories, songs, poems, plays, journals. Now I’m starting to get my stories out into the world, but also I am telling them at home to my three year old son. It started as a method of parenting – it’s easier to get a reluctant child to do just about anything if you make up a story about it. If shampooing his hair will give him the magical powers to kill a dragon, suddenly he’s all for it, even if he normally despises getting his head wet. The more verbal he got, however, the more he asked me for “the story about the …”. At first he asked for stories I’d already told, then he’d just think of random objects and ask me to tell stories about them. An insistent three-year old demanding stories on the spot is a great stimulus for the creative process.

One day he asked me for “the story about the candle”. “I don’t know that one,” I said. “You tell it.” So he did. I had to prompt him with “then what happened?” a number of times, but he told his own story at three years old. He started it with ‘Once upon a time’ and ended it with ‘and they lived happily ever after. The End’. As much as I would like to chalk it up to the amazing prodigy that is my son, the truth is that all kids have the ability to write fiction and the more you encourage storytelling, the more they’ll do it. All they need is a listening ear and a sense of what a story is, which they’ll get from having stories told to them and read to them.

Read to them, tell them stories, ask them for the stories in their heads - that is my advice on the raising of writers. My own writing process currently is a dual exploration – my own creativity and my son’s. We inspire each other. We checked it out with Grandmom, so we know the moon is not made of Gouda cheese … but we pretend that it is anyway.

And they lived happily ever after. The end.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Genevieve Cogman clearly has excellent taste in bands. Besides that, she’s also had the privilege of writing for some of the most complex and popular role-playing game properties out there, among them the World of Darkness, In Nomine, GURPS and the upcoming and highly anticipated (by us, anyway) Dresden Files game. I’d encourage everyone to click the “more…” link and read the whole of her fantastic article, no matter what genre or industry you plan on writing for. It’s great advice!

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Ladies, fish, and gentlemen — sorry, had a Blue Oyster Cult flashback.

Ladies and gentlemen, at some point in your writing career you are going to get edited. I’m not just talking about helpful suggestions from beta-readers, writing groups, or friends who are looking at your stuff. I’m talking about a manuscript which you’ve actually signed a contract to write — or which you’re submitting on the understanding that the editor will take a serious look at — which has come back with red ink and comments all over it.

This is my experience, and my usual course of action. I hope it’s useful to you.

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